With so many rumored trades in the NFL this year and so many different sources of numbers, I think many are getting lost in the way that trades actually work in the NFL and the salary cap requirements before and after a trade. So let’s break things down.

When you acquire a player in a trade you are acquiring the player’s contract as is. The prorated money in a contract that was already paid for by the players former team is the only part of the contract that remains with the old team, unless the old team agrees to pay him more salary prior to a trade. When you acquire the contract you need to have the salary cap space necessary to fit that player under the salary cap at the moment you trade for him.

So let’s use Maxx Crosby as an example. He has a $35.791 million salary cap charge with the Raiders. Of that figure $5.791 million is prorated money. That number is still the responsibility of the Raiders. The remaining $30.697 million is the responsibility of the new team in 2026. With Crosby’s current contract structure that means a team trading for Crosby needs at least $29.857 million (Crosbys cap charge minus the $840K salaried player he is replacing) at the time of trade to make the trade happen. If the team only has $10 million the trade is not allowed by the NFL. They need to create space to make the trade happen.

After the trade occurs the acquiring team then has the ability to restructure the contract to bring the salary cap charge down. In Crosby’s case they would convert $28.7 million to a bonus, likely adding a void year in the process, and save $22.96 million in cap room, bringing Crosbys salary cap number for the year down to $7.822 million. However, that does not occur until after the trade. You need the $29.857M to execute the trade not just $7.8 million.

This restructure also does not wipe out the new teams responsibilities for that $22.96 million in savings. That money is simply reallocated to the remainder of the contract. His cap charge would grow by $5.74 million in each additional year. Crosby’s 2027 cap charge, for example, would go from $29.782 million to $35.522 million. The new team is still paying for it they are just changing how they account for it on their salary cap.

Are there ways around these restrictions? Yes there are. You can get creative with a contract to prorate money before the trade but that would require the trading team to be willing to take on more cap charges this year and wait a season to get a credit for not actually paying it. You may not want to do that if you are the team making the trade and players can also ask for more in return if you are asking them to make a modification to make a trade happen especially if it impacts the timing of a new contract. This is a pretty rare occurrence and off the top of my head I can only think of one time a contract was reworked prior to a trade to pre-restructure a contract.

There are different rules in place for franchise players. Those players can sign a new contract with the old team including a signing bonus and the team that trades for that player only has to have the space for the adjusted contract not the tender, but those are strictly for those tendered players not those under an active contract like Crosby.